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TIL the reason many naval mines have spikes on them is because each spike contains a glass vial of battery acid. When shattered, the battery acid then energizes a lead-acid battery (which doesn't have acid inside), which then powers the detonator.

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1aWBO TIL that Soviet Armenian swimmer Shavarsh Karapetyan was finishing a 12-mile run when he heard a bus crash into the water. He dove down 33 ft, and rescued 20 people, 1 at a time. He is an 11-time World Record holder, 17-time World Champion, 13-time European Champion and 7-time USSR Champion.
rNQ10 TIL about Jim Corbett, a British-Indian hunter responsible for tracking and killing some of the most prolific man eating big cats in India. He later became an early proponent of the conservationist movement and encouraged fellow trackers to replace hunting with nature photography.
AY0B TIL that whoever is the President of France is also the co-ruler of the tiny European nation of Andorra. This makes Andorra the only country in the world to have one of its leaders chosen by people from another nation
MeJJa TIL of the IMCF, a sport in which people dress in full medieval armor and fight each other in an arena with a shield and (blunt) swords
PO4G TIL during World War II, Polish doctors Stanislaw Matulewicz and Eugeniusz Lazowski infected Jews with a microbe Proteus OX19, which exhibits symptoms of typhus, which lead Nazi doctors to quarantine and stop deportations in fear of infecting Nazi troops, thus saving thousands of lives.